Mulgrew: Commissioner Oppal’s chance to save face vanishes

The Missing Women inquiry limps into its final phase with its credibility in tatters and a key witness bolting.

As if Commissioner Wally Oppal isn’t facing enough adversity, the one woman who escaped from serial killer Robert Pickton refused to testify Tuesday.

Critics have long argued that as many as 19 or 20 women might not have died had prosecutors proceeded with charges against the pig farmer after he stabbed the former sex-trade worker known only as Ms. Anderson back in 1997.

The woman, whose identity is protected by court order, died on the operating table and had to be resuscitated as a result of her wounds. She has since turned her life around and was to testify this week.

But commission lawyer Art Vertlieb told the inquiry that she fears appearing and still has difficulty dealing with the vicious assault and its aftermath.

It was the latest body blow sustained by the troubled commission accused of displaying the very evils it was meant to combat — institutional racism and sexism.

Fifteen organizations, an informal coalition of aboriginal and community groups, also on Tuesday rebuffed Oppal’s heartfelt plea that they end their boycott and contribute to the inquiry before its summer deadline.

Their stinging letter of rejection followed damning accusations from anonymous ex-staffers last week of improper behaviour behind the scenes.

“We are not prepared to lend the credibility of our respective organizations’ names and expertise to this Inquiry, which can only be described as a deeply flawed and illegitimate process,” the groups wrote.

“The Commission has lost all credibility among aboriginal, sex work, human rights and women’s organizations that work with and are comprised of the very women most affected by the issues this Inquiry is charged with investigating.”

A former appeal court justice and cabinet minister, Oppal has been forced to hire two more lawyers to defend the commission’s integrity and investigate the damaging gossip rife in the media.

For the groups who withdrew from the inquiry because the government refused to fund them while paying some two-dozen lawyers to represent institutional and police interests, it added insult to injury.

Larger political issues have overwhelmed the proceedings and it is difficult to see how even a brilliant final report will have enough heft to overcome the inquiry’s tarnished reputation.

Oppal’s recommendations, no matter how insightful, seem fated to be dismissed as biased and compromised. For many, this inquiry is already a debacle.

We are learning little about the initial investigation of Pickton because the prosecution file was destroyed in 2000 and the Crown who handled the 1997 case doesn’t remember much.

Veteran prosecutor Randi Connor said she stayed the attempted murder and other charges against Pickton because she did not believe there was a substantial likelihood of conviction. She dropped the case after a January 1998 meeting with Ms. Anderson because the victim was drug-addled.

“She was in bad shape,” Connor said. “I concluded as a result of this that I could not conduct a proper interview with her, I couldn’t get the details from her. I just didn’t get anywhere with her … I couldn’t get her to articulate the evidence.”

Ms. Anderson’s testimony was essential to the case against Pickton, the prosecutor emphasized: “We couldn’t proceed without her.”

Given that Pickton had spent a week in hospital recovering from having his throat slashed, that he claimed to have stabbed Ms. Anderson in self-defence and that he had no criminal record, Connor aborted the trial: She had no credible victim to put on the stand. We still don’t.

It’s understandable but truly unfortunate 14 years later that the only surviving victim, the one woman who can shed first-hand light on Pickton’s crimes, doesn’t want to talk.

For Oppal, it means the opportunity to let the public hear an essential voice — and perhaps his last chance to recover some credibility, has slipped away.

imulgrew@vancouversun.com

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Mulgrew: Commissioner Oppal’s chance to save face vanishes

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